1. Rational Economic Man:

From the organisational perspective, managers had, for a long time, viewed their employees as rational beings who are primarily motivated by money. They took the ‘ECONOMIC MAN’ and ‘RATIONAL MAN’ approach to understand and predict the human behaviour. This model is based on classical organisation theory.

The Scientific Management Movement was based on the belief that by rationally explaining the one best way to do things and offering incentives to workers in the form of piece rates and bonuses, organisational output can be increased. Psychologists have also studied this model for predicting human behaviour. For example, McGregor’s assumptions of Theory X reflect this model.

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The basic assumptions of the concept of ‘Rational Economic Man’ are as follows:

(i) People are motivated primarily by economic incentives. They will do things which get them the greatest economic gain.

(ii) As the organisation controls the economic incentives, human beings are essentially passive agents, who are manipulated, motivated and controlled by the organisation.

(iii) The feelings of the people are essentially irrational and must be controlled to achieve rationality and self interest.

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(iv) Organisations can and must be designed in such a way so as to neutralize and control people’s feelings and therefore their unpredictable traits.

In this model, people are induced to produce more by providing them with economic incentives. In this case, there is no organisation-employees conflict because both are satisfying their needs simultaneously. Management is getting more production and people are getting more money.

Drawbacks:

(i) As this model is based on the classical organisation theory, it suffers from the shortcomings inherent in that theory and do not suit the present day organisation.

(ii) The economic incentives can work till the man is not reasonably satisfied by the need of money.

Though, the need of money is inexhaustible and the man will never have enough, but after a certain stage, only money will not be sufficient for him. He will have some psychological needs also, which cannot be fulfilled by the organisation in this case. Therefore, it can be stated that the whole assumption of Rational Economic man are not sufficient in understanding and predicting human behaviour.

2. Social Man:

With the passage of time, the advocates of human relations school recognized that there is a lot more to human behaviour than just being social man economic and rational. Advocates of this school considered the worker as a social man. They recognized that man is a part of the social group he is influenced by the social forces and seeks satisfaction of the needs which are related to the maintenance of his social relationships. Eltan Mayo conceived the concept of the social man when he carried out Hawthorne studies during 1927-32.

From the reports of Hawthorne experiments the following assumptions about human beings can be drawn:

(i) Human beings are basically motivated by social needs and all their efforts are directed towards getting this satisfaction by maintaining relationships with others.

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(ii) A human being is more responsive to the pressures and sanctions of his social group than to the incentives and controls of the management. The reason is that he values social relationship higher than his economic motives which are directly under the control of management.

(iii) The amount of work to be done by a worker is not determined by his physical capacity or by the management but by the social norms.

(iv) Generally people do not act or react as individuals but as members of a group.

(v) Informal leaders play an important role in setting and enforcing the group norms.

(vi) Management should change and organize work in such a way that it provides more belongingness not only in terms of interpersonal and group relationships, but also man’s relationship with his job.

The type of managerial strategy that is to be applied in the case of social man is quite different as compared to the strategy to be applied in case of Economic-Rational man. The total system of social man is directed towards people.

The following changes were required in the managerial strategy.

(i) Earlier the management was conceived only with the output given by the workers. In this approach, the management had to pay attention to the workers also as human beings.

(ii) Earlier, the only concern of die management was to provide economic incentives to the workers or in other words to look after their economic needs, but under this concept, the psychological needs were also to be considered.

(iii) Another required change was to analyze and motivate human behaviour in terms of groups rather than on individual basis.

(iv) Another change which was required was in the behaviour of the manager instead of being the controller of behaviour he was supposed to act as the supporter of workers.

The social man approach was also considered somewhat simplistic.

As time passed by, organisational behaviour theorists such as Argyris (1957), Likert (1961, 1967) and McGregor (1960) argued that people in organisations need opportunities to use their individual creativity and must have their growth needs met in order to function effectively.

3. Organisational Man:

Organisation man is an extension of social man. The concept of organisation man was introduced by William Whyte. He believed that it is very important for a person to be loyal to the organisation and cooperative with the fellow workers. Any person who believes in this value system and acts in this way is an organisation man. The basis of this concept is and that every individual should sacrifice his individuality for the sake of the group and the organisation.

This idea was initially suggested by Henry Fayol, when he suggested that individual interest should be subordinated to the general interest. Whyte had explained three major propositions, on which this concept of organisation man is based.

These propositions are as follows:

(i) The first proposition is that individual by himself is isolated and meaningless. The group is the source of activity. Individuals create only when they move in a group. A group helps to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

(ii) The ultimate need of every individual is belongingness. He wants to belong to his families, friends, relatives, colleagues and other members of the society as a whole. Whyte says that there should be no conflict between man and society.

(iii) The goal of belongingness is achieved with the help of science. Whenever there is a conflict between the needs of the society and the needs of the individual, an equilibrium can be created by applying the methods of science. Science can help in removing all the obstacles to consensus.

The organisation man concept emphasis, that there is no conflict between the individual interest and the interest of the organisation. Even if there is any conflict, individual interest will be sacrificed in favour of the group interest to remove the conflict. However, there is a basic assumption behind this concept.

The assumption is that management will take care of the individual interests. It would be the duty of the management to satisfy the needs of the individuals. People will be willing to sacrifice their interests for the organisation only if they are positive that the organisation would take care of them.

4. The Self Actuating Man:

The concept of self actuating man is a further extension of social man and the organisation man models. The social man concept assumes that the formation of social groups is the basis of satisfaction for the individuals. But as against this the self actuating man assumes that man’s inherent need is to use his capabilities and skills in such a way that he should have the satisfaction of creating certain things. The earlier models do not allow him to satisfy his self actuating needs.

Following are the main assumptions about the self actuating man:

(i) The basic assumption about this concept is that the various needs of a man can be put in the order of priority. For example, MASLOW has put various needs in a hierarchy: Every unsatisfied need is a motivational factor for him. Self actualization according to this diagram is the ultimate goal, because it is last in the hierarchy and by the time his goal is achieved, all the other needs of the man are also satisfied.

(ii) In the process of self actualization, there are various changes in the behaviour of the individual and he moves from immaturity to maturity.

(iii) Another assumption is that a man is primarily self motivated and self controlled. Any incentives given by the management cannot motivate him after a certain level and any control imposed on him cannot threaten him.

(iv) The earlier models were based on the assumption that a man has got immature personality. However, the reality is that if a man is left free, he will put in his maximum efforts.

These assumptions are generally based upon McGregor’s theory Y and Argyris’s immaturity-maturity theory. To satisfy a self actuating man what are required are all the managerial actions meant to satisfy the social man with some additional features.

5. Complex Man:

Complex man presents the real picture of human picture of human behavior. All the previous models make very simplistic assumptions about people and their behaviour.

Researchers have proved that these assumptions are not correct as explained below:

(i) The earlier models assume that man will always behave according to certain set patterns. But research has indicated that there are many complex variables, which determine the human behaviour. These variables are quite unpredictable. So the human behaviour which is based on these variables cannot follow a set pattern.

(ii) The behaviour of man can be understood and predicted in the given conditions, depending upon the assumptions made. But research has indicated that even if cause-effect relationship is established between the variables and behaviour, it is not easy to understand and predict the individual behaviour because of the individual differences. It is not necessary that everyone will behave accordingly.Most behaviour in the organisation can be understood by taking assumptions of complex man.

Following are a few assumptions about the complex man:

(i) People are not only complex but are also highly variable. Though their needs can be arranged in a hierarchy, but this hierarchy is also not universal. Different people may have different hierarchies.

(ii) People are capable of learning new motives through their organisational experiences.

(iii) People’s motives in different organisations or different sub parts of the same organisation may be different.

(iv)People can respond to many different kinds of management strategies.

Though this model is quite complex, it indicates the real situation and lays emphasis on the fact that human behaviour is not as simple as assumed in the previous models. Hence current thinking on the subject is to take a ‘complex man’ approach and recognize that different individuals have different needs and personality traits and if there is a proper match between these and the environment they operate in, functional behaviour will emerge.